Comment by dschiptsov | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dschiptsov | Hacker News Reader

That's gross oversimplification for western amateur audiences. His Holiness is trying to speak the language of common western consumer.

Behind our anxiety is ignorance. Period. Ignorance is described as a veil that obscures the view of what is from so-called primordial awareness or Atman, if you wish - the aspect of the whole (Brahman) in us. (The Buddha explicitly rejected the notion of Atman, but numerous later Indian (tantric) writers messed everything up). It is like continuous day-dreaming. The meaning of Awakening is literal awakening from this habitual delusional day-dreaming to what is.

Most of our fears are due to misapprehension of reality, like classic mistaking of a rope for a snake, and our attaching to (and hence the fear of losing) that illusory my self, which is nothing, but an appearance to ignorant and confused introspection.

This crude formulation is as old as Upanishads.

I agree. Hard not to when practicing insight leads to those same conclusions.

Having said that, I think this perspective is worth examining. I usually find an example of the emotional energy and start probing it to see if it holds up -- that is to say, do I really sense a fear whose encoded story is 'to not be needed'? How does that flow? Maybe it is there and maybe it isn't.

This is a different perspective, also interesting and worth examining: http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-on...

It isn't surprising that comfortable pop psychology is more welcome on the NYT opinion pages than esoteric theology.

There is no known contradiction of original Buddha's doctrine with modern evolutionary psychology and cognitive neuroscience. The modern notions of Cognitive Dissonance, cognitive biases, framing effects and modern western philosophy of mind only supports Buddha's views.

The only applicable critique is that original Buddhist doctrine is too general and allows flexible interpretations, nevertheless lots of scholars would maintain that Buddha's approach is one of the earliest attempts of systematic study of the mind using an imperfect method of introspection (famous Upanishadic neti neti doctrine is, perhaps, the earliest known to us), leaving validation of the insights to everyone who wished to follow the same path.

Buddha's investigation into the nature of reality and mind, which obscures it, is qualified for philosophy - precursor of modern sciences, not a religion (there is literally nothing to be saved). Theology has been developed by various competing sects hundreds of years later.

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